Witherwood Blog Tour

September 18, 2012

Today I am so excited to welcome Lish McBride to Milk & Cookies! I adored both Hold Me Closer Necromancer & Necromancing the Stone. She has created a world that I love to visit and I was so excited when I was asked to be part of this blog tour. She was kind enough to write a Food From Fiction guest post for my stop on her blog tour. And the recipe she shares for hot chocolate looks amazing! Thanks for stopping by Lish!

Food ended up being more important in Hold Me Closer, Necromancer than I intended. In the first draft of the novel, I had a lot of characters drinking tea. Now, I like tea, but not matter how much I like it, my characters can’t drink it all the time.

I think food also comes up a lot because Sam is a vegetarian. I didn’t realize how rare that is in a book until recently. So when I had to think of a recipe for this post I was like, “Oh! I should do a vegetarian tamale recipe like in the book!” Only, I don’t know how to make vegetarian tamales. Which is kind of important.

Then I remembered Sam’s mom making hot chocolate. It’s an important scene and Sam (and Ramon) make a big deal out of it. Now, I don’t have a hot chocolate recipe of my own, but my friend Jen Violi does. (Jen, besides being a wonderful maker of hot chocolate, also has a book out called Putting Make-up on Dead People and you should read it. I have no problem shamelessly plugging my friends.) I know, I know, it should be my recipe we’re using, but honestly, Sam relies a lot on his friends, and so do I.

Here is Jen Violi’s Hot Chocolate Recipe

• Take a big hunk of chocolate (any good dark chocolate you have on hand will work--often I use several squares of those big ass Trader Joe's dark chocolate bars or parts of whatever delicious fancy chocolate bars I have on hand) and melt it down in a small saucepan. • As far as how much of anything, I'd say an ounce or two of chocolate per cup of milk, so it can be thick and rich (not like a big mug of powdered mix with water) and minimal. These two are the basic ingredients. • Add a bit of whatever milk you're using early on so it doesn't burn while it's melting. Stir constantly. • At this point, I also add a dash or two of salt, some vanilla, and several shakes of chipotle chili powder, ‘cause I like it spicy, if you know what I mean. (Some people use cayenne, or even just find one of those spicy chocolate bars.) • Then stir in the rest of the milk. Milk wise, I've used cow milk, goat milk, coconut milk, almond milk, almond coconut milk--and they're all delicious. Other things you can add if you’re feeling saucy: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, mint oil, booze (whiskey, Frangelico, etc.), and let’s not forget fresh whipped cream. Or marshmallows. The sky is the limit, friends. Just don’t add all these things to the same batch. That would be disgusting.

The nice thing about this recipe is that it’s a base that you can get crazy with. The first time I made it, my son hated it because I used a really dark chocolate, and he’s just not that into that kind of chocolate. So for him, I use more of a milk chocolate. Have fun coming up with your own take on it!

Thanks for the recipe Lish, it looks wonderful.
Remember to enter to win a paperback copy of Hold Me Closer Necromancer & a hardback of Necromancing the Stone (click here to enter)
Thanks so much Lish & Macmillan for letting me be part of this blog tour! And to Lish for creating such a fun world that I can be a part of for a little while when I read her books.